May 29, 2005

"Robert H. McNeill, 87, whose photographs of African American life in Washington and Virginia during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s pushed viewers to focus on the ordinary and extraordinary lives of black Americans, died May 27 at Georgetown University Hospital of complications from diabetes.

A native Washingtonian, Mr. McNeill took up the camera as a student at Dunbar Senior High School and over the years turned his lens on the rich life around him, from portraits of hogshead barrel makers in rural Virginia to families at the National Zoo on Easter weekend to the world-famous entertainers and sports figures who swept through the District's U Street venues and Griffith Stadium.

His work, in rich blacks, whites and shades of gray, artfully explored the segregation and racism that were part of life for African Americans in the mid-Atlantic region in mid-century. Late in life, his prints grew famous and were included in numerous national exhibitions, traveling shows and books. His work also is found on many historical markers along U Street." - Patricia Sullivan, The Washington Post

May 28, 2005

Today's Washington Post features a tough, emotional Memorial Day story on the front, above the fold. The article, introduced with a wonderfully poignant photograph by Andrea Bruce Woodall, is from the Metro section, however; the lead photo for A1 serving as a key to a different section's main story.

A great design concept is at work here; namely leading the paper with the best photograph, regardless of where the story ultimately resides, and letting that provide the entrance point to the rest of the content. Wow!

"If you soak up the Jackson Pollocks at the Museum of Modern Art while listening to the museum's official rented $5 audio guide, you will hear informative but slightly dry quotations from the artist and commentary from a renowned curator. ("The grand scale and apparently reckless approach seem wholly American.")
But the other day, a college student, Malena Negrao, stood in front of Pollock's "Echo Number 25," and her audio guide featured something a little more lively. "Now, let's talk about this painting sexually," a man's deep voice said. "What do you see in this painting?"
A woman, giggling, responded on the audio track: "Oh my God! You're such a pervert. I can't even say what that - am I allowed to say what that looks like?"
The exchange sounded a lot more like MTV than Modern Art 101, but for Ms. Negrao it had a few things to recommend it. It was free. It didn't involve the museum's audio device, which resembles a cellphone crossed with a nightstick. And best of all, it was slightly subversive: an unofficial, homemade and thoroughly irreverent audio guide to MoMA, downloaded onto her own iPod." - Randy Kennedy

May 21, 2005

My last labor of love after a 6 year run as photography editor of The Washington Post Magazine has launched. 'Blog City' makes its debut in this weekend's magazine. It features the work of several D.C. area flickrites, and lives up to my dream of perfect synergy between web and print.

Thank you to the editors of the Post Magazine for not being afraid of the future!

Next month I become the Picture Editor for The Washington Post newspaper. What a strange journey this has become!

May 19, 2005

"Google is launching a personalized home page tonight, which you can view now by going to this URL. It’s basically a custom portal of your own Google services, like a Gmail preview and Google News highlihgts, as well as Word of the Day, Weather, and Wired News updates (they must be pretty happy about that)."

May 15, 2005

As I get ready to enter the daily battle for the hearts, minds and eyes of Washington area readers, I can't help but take a side by side look at my paper and the paper most suited to compare it to. A few thoughts, maybe some answers.

- The New York Times has come a long way in recent years. The old gray lady ain't that any more - there are big, colorful pictures and smart design everywhere; many pages look like life captured on paper, as if you could step right in and be in the scene.

- The Post, on the other hand, wears the old gray lady mantle with some kind of miss-guided sense of pride - over or under sized text abounds, with pictures often in only two sizes - small or smaller. The visual style of the paper feels like it's from the 70's; which is to say that it has almost no style that is relevant to the visually literate readers of 21st century D.C. The Sunday Source and Sports stands out as the lone sections consistently attempting to swim up this visually shallow stream.

- The eyes of our community, as well as those of most of the Western world, have been raised on a diet of graphically rich web sites and 50 inch home theater screens. They expect to get information from large, detail-rich pictures and graphics, and to use them as entry points to the rest of your content. They reject any publication, print or online, that doesn't offer that.

- To survive in this new century, we in the printed and on-screen media worlds must morph into each other; but if there is a choice to be made, it will be better to err on the side of the graphically sophisticated rather than that of the visually challenged.

May 11, 2005

A great article from the Spartanburg Herald-Journal in South Carolina about my sister! She is an orchestra teacher in the school district there and having quite an impact. Since the paper's website requires you to register, I decided to bend a few copyright rules to blow my sister's horn!

Chelsey Fuller joined orchestra as a fifth grader to follow in her older sister's footsteps, but she didn't have a true passion for the craft.

Now, three years later, the Whitlock Junior High School student said she has a renewed interest in strings and plans to attend college on a music scholarship.

The difference? Having a new instructor -- Theresa Jenkins-Russ.

"At first, I really didn't like orchestra," Fuller, 15, said. "But after having Mrs. Russ, I enjoy it because I'm learning."

Russ is in her second year as an orchestra teacher in Spartanburg School District 7. In just a short time, colleagues and parents say she's broken barriers never crossed before and serves as a role model to the students, as she is the first African-American orchestra teacher in District 7 in recent years.

"Until she came, Whitlock was sort of 'the forgotten school,' " said Anthony Norman, whose daughter Stephanie is a Whitlock ninth-grader. "But since she came, she's gotten a lot of kids involved in music. There's a lot of talent at Whitlock and she's brought it out."

May 05, 2005

"While Japanese grilling is preoccupied with pristine ingredients and ever-fattier beef, Korean grilling is dedicated to garlicky, spicy marinades and smoky flavor. Charcoal is considered a necessity for good grilling in both countries, something to which American grill snobs can relate." - Julia Moskin, The New York Times

May 02, 2005

The Washington Post Magazine is launching a new feature for D.C. area photographers. It will be called 'Blog City - Seeing Ourselves Through the Lens of Washington's Photobloggers.'

Anyone in the metro D.C. area who regularly posts photos to their own photoblog or flickr site is welcome to submit photos for consideration. You can send in 3 photos per month and they should be at least 300 dpi and 8x10 inches in size. You should also include a brief description for each photo submitted. We also require that you send us the URL for you photoblog or flickr site. While you won't receive any fee if you photo is selected, we will publish your work along with the URL of your site.

A couple of words of caution; since both your photo and your site's URL will be appearing in the Washington Post Magazine, we will be screening for 'family friendly' content. Also, if you photograph people in public places, you don't have to get their permission for us to publish their picture; however, when it comes to submitting photographs of children, only do so when you know you have the parent's consent. We won't be able to publish the photo without that.

Meant to comment on this sooner. I thought last week's BusinessWeek article on blogs was a good attempt to capture the history and flavor of the medium that is now 'the new black'. Interestingly though, the strengths and weaknesses of the current data-centric web were also on display.

While the online version of the story looked and read like a weblog, I thought the print version looked and felt much more inviting; like something I actually wanted to read! And that is it, in a nutshell - the web is great with information, but 9 times our of 10, in the hands of a good designer, print does a way better job of integrating pictures and graphics to help tell a more complete story. This is very important to me, I am a visual journalist, but it should be important to all who find art and beauty necessary parts of their daily lives.

The beauty of the layout. The art of picture placement on a page. The effect of a stunning typeface as your eyes flow over the words. All these things are becoming lost as we reduce everything to their basic 1 and 0 digital elements. This is what print still has on digital; this is why magazines and newspapers should not give up the fight, why ink on paper has survived for thousands of years and still has many, many years left. As the culture of man becomes more and more visually literate, lets remember to keep evolving those elements of information sharing that remain true to providing form with content.